They're here...

Tonight the African Children's Choir will be performing here at Parkside at 7:00pm!

These 23 children are from Uganda, Africa and we get the privilege of hosting a couple of the boys tonight at our house. If I have any good stories worth sharing I'll have to post them tomorrow.

Anyway if your close to the Cinci area, come on...
it's FREE and concert begins at 7:00pm.

NCAA Tournament Bracket

At the office we've put together our brackets like I'm sure most of you have done. And like most of you...KANSAS...messed my bracket up quite a bit! However even with that, I am currently leading the 22 brackets that are on our wall here in the office (one in the middle is a chart of current stats). It's funny that someone who doesn't watch basketball leads the pack. I realize this could be very temporary, so I'm posting while I'm on top! (Fist pump)

Let me know how you're doing!
Or...let me know if you have no idea of what I'm talking about!

What is the value of "one day"...

...I guess it really depends on who you ask.

Some would say a single day is expendable,

while others would describe the value of a day as irreplaceable!

Yesterday I sat down with a lady who has a close friend going through a very difficult time. Her friend is a Latino Pastor whose son is in a coma, so I agreed to go to Children’s Hospital and spend some time with this family that I have never met before. The family didn’t speak English very well so our conversations were being interpreted. Let me say this, “Regardless of a language barrier, there is a mysterious level of comfort, empathy and bond when Jesus is the common denominator! And that was definitely the case here!” Some of you know exactly what I mean.

Well without going into a lot of detail, we all circled up, held hands and prayed for this 15 year old boy to regain consciousness. As I was closing out my visit with this family the boy's father said this, “I believe that God is capable of raising my son out of this coma! I believe that with all my heart! (he paused, then went on)...But I also believe that God’s ways are so much higher than my own. And because of this, I humbly accept His answer, regardless if that answer is settling to me or not. From my human perspective I am pained to see my boy this way, and wish for nothing more than for him to come home with me. But if he does not wake here, I know that he will awake to a scene I can only imagine! And because of this I am at peace.”

What else can I say, except he nailed it! Now the difficult part will be for him to live this out, as I received a phone call earlier that his son has moved on.

'What is the value of "one day" day for you?'

Eeewwwhhh

This past weekend my brother, his wife and 2 kids came down for a visit which was very nice! Well one night the boys were playing together on the floor and Owen (2 1/2) was "doing the dance." You know the kind of dance that little boys do when they "have to go," but can't seem to pull themselves away from playing? Yeah, that's the one! Well after asking him if he had to go potty, he ran to the restroom and grabbed the little potty seat off of the toilet and literally threw it up against the wall, because THIS WAS HIS EMERGENCY!!! All of this was so much of a priority that he didn't even care to close the door, which is how we witnessed this next part.

Now before I go on let me say, "We could have probably won $10,000 dollars on America's Funniest Videos!" See when he got off the big potty, he did what he was supposed to do. He got his own toilet paper "like a big boy," then he wiped his bottom "like a big boy." Now I wish I could say that it all ended here, but it didn't. Because after wiping his bottom, he directly pulled it up and wiped his nose without any hesitation!!!....
Yeah...that's how we all reacted too! "NOOOOOO!!!" is the only answer any of us had for this horrific scene!!! I instantly jumped to my feet and ran to rescue him! Thankfully there wasn't anything to clean off, but believe me...I scrubbed his face anyway!

TMI...maybe, but it cracked us up. I am honestly at a loss for why he even did this in the first place. Whatever the reason, I'm still a little scarred by that night.

I guess the moral of this story is this:

"Toilet paper is used to clean things,
but PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE...
clean these things one at a time!!!"

Our New Floor

This past week Holly and I decided to redo our kitchen / dining room floors. It's not a very big area, but after taking out tile, grout, concrete backer board, and additional backer board, it became a much bigger job than we originally thought.
(Isn't that how it usually goes though?)

Anyway, I decided to show you the fruits of our "blood, sweat and tears." And I am being serious when I say, "blood, sweat and tears."

Blood--Because I had to super glue Holly's hand shut after being sliced on a tile.

Sweat--Because that's what bodies do when you're working hard.

Tears--At 1:00am one night Holly cried when we couldn't figure something out (Wasn't funny then, but it is now)

Anyway, here are some pictures:

Ohio River Adventure

As many of you know, I like to go fishing! Well this past weekend I took Cole out fishing to the Ohio River. Since January he has been begging me to go fishing, so when the sun came out this past weekend we didn't pass it up. And let me tell you, it REALLY IS an adventure when you take a 5 year old fishing! I think I did more untangling line, setting the line and coaching him HOW TO CAST, than I did anything else! (Even though it was getting old, I realized these days will pass soon enough so I was proud to do it!)

Well in between doing all of this I saw my pole moving, however it wasn't moving too much so I didn't reel it in. Anyway after I was getting ready to call it quits, I caught this "thing" below. Let me say, over the many years of going fishing I can honestly say I've never caught one of these. Call it strange, ugly, weird...but Cole and I call it another adventure!

Here's a quick quiz for you:

What do you think this creature is called?
Any thoughts?

Brain Test

I want to let you know that I WAS able to do this, however there were a few times that my foot wasn't listening. I drew the number 6 very well each time with my hand, but it was my foot that seemed not to follow. In fact I began smiling a little bit, not because it was fun, but because it was sort of frustrating that I was losing this stupid, silly brain test. Then when I nailed it and did it right a few times in a row, I stopped as if I was walking away with the upper hand.

Let me know how it went for you!

When a child moves on...

For those of you keeping up with our freinds' story, here is a picture of them while at the hosptial! Even going through one of life's most difficult hurdles, I believe this picture captured a marriage at its best in my opinion!!! Love you guys!

If you'd like to read more about their story:

http://www.churchonmission.typepad.com/seanandshey

Super Glue

Super Glue is such a wonderful thing!

I mean seriously, I'm sure each of you have used it at some point in time on SOMETHING! I mean what else can you use to re-glue toys, pottery, your rear view mirror...and my all time favorite...SKIN!!! Which is where I'll pick up my story from this weekend.


Holly and I have been working on our kitchen floor by breaking out the tile that's currently in there. Well on Saturday, just as everything had been going smoothly with breaking up the tile, I hear a hammer hit the floor and hear Holly say, "Uhh! Oh no Clayton, I just cut myself and it's bad!" Nonchalantly I say, "Let me see." After seeing about a half inch gash in her hand, I told her to pinch it shut and that it wasn't too bad. Reality, yeah she could have used stitches. But what's funny is, we were too cheap to go to the ER. So instead I went and got some Super Glue that we had so I could glue it shut! (Now before you think I'm the worst husband in the world, realize that super glue is like Dermabond which hospitals sometimes use instead of using stitches.) Anyway the funniest part, looking back on it now, was right before I glued it I asked her, "Do you want to go to the hospital because it's going to scar."
Her response, "I don't care as long as you don't care."

...Now...I wish I could say that, right then and there we gazed into each others eyes and got mushy with phrases like:

"Honey, I'd love you with or without scars."
"Heck honey, I'd love you with or without hands."
"Honey, I'd still love you even if you were a vegetable."
And then realizing how deep our love goes for each other, we passionately started kissing...

...Instead it was more of us looking at each other,
as if to read the others mind
Holly: "You're really going to glue my hand aren't you."
Me: "...Yep!"

May seem silly to others, but I love our marriage!

The Tooth Fairy

I thought this was worth sharing!
(Her mother sent this to me and I had to share it!)

A little 6 year old girl wrote this letter today right before school. But before she put it under her pillow, she gave it to her mother and included some instructions. She said, "Scan it and send it to my friend and make sure she knows what the Tooth Fairy is up to!"


So "Tooth Fairy," if you're reading this...
you might want to rethink the whole tooth steeling bit!
Apparently money isn't enough these days.